I’d like to quote a passage from the book “Wildflowers of the Pacific Coast”
by Leslie L. Haskin, 1959. Leslie writes:
“To the student of Western botany, the work accomplished by that enthusiastic Scotch explorer, David Douglas, is a source of constant wonder. Besides the dried specimens that he forwarded to his patron, Dr. Hooker, he collected seeds and live plants in great numbers for the London Horticultural Society, and, as a result of this intensive labor, it is a fact that even to this day many of our native flowers are more generally known in England than in their native habitat! Among them, our own showy species of Eriophyllum has there been highly prized for nearly a century, while here, until recently, it has been almost disregarded.”
The plant he is writing about is this one, Oregon Sunshine. Even now, some sixty years after Leslie wrote that paragraph, Many people take little note of the common coastal meadow wildflower and many fewer know its name.
It stands in the meadow grasses adding bright yellow faces among the green grasses. It is in the composite family and this plant was photographed this afternoon in the meadow on Legoe Bay.
Each petal of the flower is very subtly two toned. The inner two-thirds of the petal being sunshine yellow while the outer third is just a slightly greener yellow.
Dal Neitzel